


The John Watson Affair

by abundantlyqueer



Series: The John Watson Affair Universe [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), two two one bravo baker - Fandom
Genre: Bravo Baker, Case Fic, Heist, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-26 01:11:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pornographic case-fic AU, based on ‘The Thomas Crowne Affair’ (Alan Trustman, 1968) and ‘The Sign of the Four’ (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1890).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Heist

Cullen, unremarkably dressed in a dark burgundy tracksuit and a black knitted cap, is jogging along a city street. His stride is easy, but extended enough for him to keep pace with a gleaming dark gray car moving through the light mid-afternoon traffic.

The car crosses an intersection and Cullen drops to a halt at the corner. He bends over, one hand braced on his thigh and the other bringing his phone from his pocket to his ear.

“Bravo Four to Alpha Four,” he says in an undertone. “Carrier ETA is one minute thirty seconds, over.”

“This is Alpha Four,” Henn answers. “Copy that, out.”

Cullen straightens up, tucking his phone away, turns the corner and picks up into a jog again. He turns off the street into an alleyway where a white van, with the words _Poppy Flowers_ in ornate red letters on the sides, is parked. Blackwood, dressed in brown overalls and canvas work gloves, is sitting in the driver’s seat; he lifts his chin in acknowledgement as Cullen approaches. Cullen swipes his cap off his head and unzips his tracksuit jacket as he walks round to the back of the van.

Henn crumples up the credit card application he’s been filling out at a writing desk that commands a view of the street through the plate-glass doors of the bank lobby. He drops the application form into the bin and slots the tethered pen into its holder. He smoothes his right hand - gloved in thin black leather - down his blue tie and gray waistcoat.

The gray car pulls up outside. The driver gets out and opens the rear door; a man in a dark suit and overcoat gets out.

Henn brushes back one side of his unbuttoned jacket and hooks his fingers into his waistcoat pocket. He steps away from the writing desk and begins walking towards the doors. The man in the overcoat crosses the pavement and pushes one of the doors open. Henn looks away and lengthens his stride.

The man in the overcoat crosses the threshold. Henn veers abruptly and walks right into him.

“Watch out!” the other man snaps.

Henn jerks his hand from his waistcoat pocket to clutch at the other man’s coat sleeve.

“God, I’m - I’m awfully sorry,” Henn says, wide-eyed with dismay as he looks up. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” the other man says, his scowl softening as Henn brushes apologetically at his unbuttoned coat front and the jacket front beneath it.

“Well, I am sorry,” Henn says, drawing his gloved hand back hesitantly.

The other man’s eyes warm as he glances over the broad planes of Henn’s shoulders and chest speculatively. Henn’s mouth curls slightly; he steps aside, glancing up at the other man from under the pale sweep of his eyelashes before moving past him to push out through the door onto the street.

Henn starts walking purposefully away from the bank. He peels the glove from his right hand, turning it inside out and tucking the fingers into the palm to make a neat ball. Then he strips off his other glove, tucks the first one inside it, and tosses the small bundle into a rubbish bin as he passes. He takes his phone from his coat pocket and raises it to his ear.

“Alpha Four to Bravo Three,” he says. “The marker has been delivered to the carrier, over.”

“This is Bravo Three,” Garrett answers. “I copy that, out.”

He’s standing at a bus stop on the opposite side of the street, wearing dark blue dress pants, black shoes, a voluminous rain jacket and black woolen gloves. He hangs up on Henn and slips his phone into his pocket. He rocks his weight on his heels, staring across the street at the bank.

After about ten minutes, the man in the overcoat emerges. His driver opens the rear passenger door of the car for him and he gets in. The driver closes the door, resumes his own seat, and the car moves off. Garrett brings his phone out and up to his ear again.

“This is Bravo Three to Alpha One,” he says. “The carrier has cleared the target, over.”

“This is Alpha One,” John answers. “I copy the target is cleared, out.”

He’s standing in front of an electronics store, apparently studying the window display. He’s wearing tan driving gloves and a brown leather flight jacket over a blue shirt and pale tan chinos. He lowers his phone, glances at it as he redials, and lifts it again.

“This is Alpha One to Alpha Two,” he says crisply. “The target is cleared, we are _green to go_.”

“This is Alpha Two,” Blackwood says with great relish. “I copy that, roger and out.”

John turns away from the store window, pocketing his phone, and starts to walk briskly along the street towards the bank. The white van passes him and pulls up in front of the bank. Blackwood jumps out and walks round to the back of the van. He opens up one of the rear doors; a canvas curtain screens most of the van’s interior, but just inside the door there’s a large plumed fern in a tall ceramic pot, roped to an upright metal handcart. Blackwood heaves the cart and its load off the van’s bed onto the ground, and throws the van door closed again. He kicks the cart up onto the pavement and pushes it towards the doors of the bank.

“Let me get that door for you, mate,” John says, stepping past Blackwood, pushing the door open, and then holding it wide.

“Cheers,” Blackwood says as he wheels the cart over the threshold.

He glances at John, a quick, intent look that John meets with a calm, steady gaze. Blackwood trundles the cart towards the information desk; John veers away to a writing desk against one wall. Blackwood stands the cart up at the information desk, smiling warmly at the young woman sitting there as he pulls a couple of pages out of his thigh pocket. John dips both hands into his jacket pockets and extracts a pair of gray metal canisters. He stoops quickly, thumbing the wire clip at the top of each canister up. Pale gray smoke starts to jet from the canisters as John rolls one across the floor toward the cashiers’ counters, and the other into the corner where a narrow hallway leads from the public lobby to the more restricted and secure area of the bank. John straightens again and moves swiftly to where a fire alarm is mounted on the wall. Customers and bank employees start to notice the smoke billowing up from one side of the cashiers’ counters and around the hallway. There’s a little flurry of panic and several exclamations. John slams the point of his elbow through the glass cover of the fire alarm and flips the switch.

At the first peal of the alarm bells, the back doors of the white van burst open and Cullen, Barr, Hinde and McMath jump out. All four are wearing white shirts, navy ties, and dark blue dress pants, black woolen gloves and dark blue jackets with the word _Security_ emblazoned across the backs. Garrett has crossed the street to join them, bundling off his rain jacket to reveal the same outfit.

Cullen and Garrett each push open one of the plate-glass doors and wedge it in place as Barr, Hinde and McMath stride into the bank lobby.

“Everybody outside, please,” McMath says, raising his voice to be heard over the alarm bells. “Do not run, just walk, thank you.”

They shepherd people toward the doors, McMath urging the cashiers to be quick locking their cash drawers and coming out from behind their counters.

“Please keep moving down the street,” Garrett says as people stream out through the doors, “ _down the street_ , thank you.”

Blackwood extracts two aerosol paint cans from his thigh pockets and throws one to John. They start moving quickly from one security camera to another, faces averted until they’ve sprayed each lens with black paint.

The customers and bank staff have cleared the lobby. Cullen and Garrett kick out the door wedges and pull the doors closed. Garrett takes a thick plastic zip-tie from his pocket, threads it through the vertical brass door-pulls, and straps it tight. Cullen stays by the doors while Garrett hurries to join the others.

“Forty-five seconds,” John shouts.

McMath has yanked the fern out of its pot, revealing the rootless base embedded in a thin disk of earth, which he throws aside. He draws a heavily laden black canvas backpack out of the pot and undoes the top flap. A uniformed bank guard comes running down the hallway from the back of the bank, his radio in his hand.

“Oi, what’s - wait a minute, you’re not - ” he blurts, confusion turning to sharpening alarm.

“No, we’re not,” McMath says, jerking his hand out of the backpack and swinging the handgun he’s holding up to aim at the guard’s head.

“Jesus fucking - ” the guard blurts as Barr grabs him.

Barr simultaneously hooks a foot around the guard’s shins to drop him to his knees, and wrenches the radio from his grip. Barr drops the radio to the floor and Hinde slams his heel down on it, smashing it open. Barr uses a zip-tie to fasten the guard’s wrists behind his back. McMath is distributing handguns to the others; each man snaps the slide and checks the chamber of his weapon as soon as it’s in his hand.

“Down, face down,” Barr snaps, pushing the guard onto the floor.

He zip-ties the man’s ankles together. Blackwood extracts another heavily filled black canvas bag from the plant pot and slings it onto his shoulder.

“One minute,” John says. “ _Move_.”

The six of them run down the hallway towards the back of the bank. They turn a corner and leap down a couple of steps. Two more uniformed bank guards, together with a man and a woman in business clothes, are hurrying towards them. All four stop in surprise.

“Drop the radios,” John barks, bringing his handgun up, as does Blackwood.

In the time it takes the guards to comprehend his instruction, let alone respond to it, McMath and Barr have them on their knees and Hinde is smashing their radios.

“Oh my God,” the woman bank employee gasps.

“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” John says firmly, “but I need you to lie face-down on the floor right now.”

Both bank employees obey, albeit with a fear-fueled mix of alacrity and inefficiency. John keeps his gun trained while the others bind wrists and ankles. The woman bank employee is breathing in sharp, broken gasps as Hinde takes hold of her ankle to wrap the zip-tie around it.

“I know this is scary,” Hinde says, “but I promise, you are in _really_ good hands and you’re going to be absolutely safe.”

She nods vigorously, her breathing shaking into a more sustainable rhythm.

Blackwood has run farther down the hallway to where the way is barred by a steel security gate. On the other side of the gate is a windowless room lined from floor to ceiling with double-locked hutches for safety deposit boxes, punctuated by the thick steel door of the vault.

Blackwood reaches into an outer pocket of his bag and extracts a small block of putty-like material with an assembly of copper and wiring embedded in it. He claps it to the gate, where the lock meets the jamb, and fixes it in place with a couple of winds of plastic tape. He loops two loose ends of the wiring up and twists them together.

“Fire in the hold,” he shouts as he turns and runs back down the hallway.

“There’s going to be a bang,” Hinde says to the captives. “It’s just going to be loud; it’s not going to be dangerous.”

There’s a sharp bang. John, Blackwood, McMath and Barr move down the hallway quickly. The steel-bar gate is swinging open now, greasy black soot streaking the lock plate and the wall next to the door jamb.

“Lights,” John says to McMath as Blackwood pulls a handheld ultraviolet lamp from his bag.

McMath palms the light switch just inside the gate. The blackness is instant and utterly impenetrable in the small, windowless space. There’s a click and then a very faint hum as Blackwood turns on the lamp, and the shapes of things come into visibility again, picked out in the faintly speckled green glow of dust and skin oils. Blackwood sweeps the lamp over the ranks of safety deposit box hatches. Most hutches glow a little brighter around the double locks, but there’s one that’s lit up like neon with iridescent green dust smudged thickly all over it.

“Got it - give me the lights back,” Blackwood says, putting his hand on the hutch to mark its place and turning the lamp off again.

McMath turns the overhead lights on again, all four men blinking in the brightness. Blackwood drops his bag at his feet and takes out three crowbars. John and McMath take one each and go to work wrenching hutch fronts open by ramming the tip of the crowbar into the narrow gap between the hutch front and the surrounding frame, and then levering until the locks simply rip loose. They yank out the steel safety deposit boxes and throw them on the floor. Blackwood breaks open the marked hutch, pulls out the safety deposit box inside, and sets it down with its single interior lock uppermost. The ring of the box striking the floor makes it obvious the contents are quite heavy. Blackwood pulls a power drill and two pairs of safety glasses out of his bag.

Barr takes one pair of glasses, slips them on, and then crouches down to grip the safety deposit box with both hands. Blackwood applies the tip of the drill bit to the lock and turns the drill on. There’s a high whine and then a tearing screech as the drill bit starts to strip through metal. A few sparks are thrown off, and a thread of smoke starts to waft upwards. The drill bit bites right through the depth of the lock; Blackwood pulls it free.

McMath has stopped pulling safety deposit boxes out of their hutches. Now he’s using the crowbar on the double locks of the boxes. The fit between the lid and body of each box is too tight to insert the tip of the crowbar into; he’s just stabbing and gouging at the locks with the broader end of the crowbar. Some boxes he attempts in only the most cursory fashion, just one or two strikes around the lock. Others he beats until they’re misshapen and scored with deep scratches, though the locks still hold. Blackwood shoves the drilled box to John, who flips the lid open. There are several document envelopes inside, together with three long, cylindrical black velvet bags, and two black velvet boxes, one about three inches square, the other about six inches by nine. John pulls an empty backpack from Blackwood’s bag and transfers the bags and the boxes to it.

Blackwood sets another safety deposit box on end. Barr grips it and Blackwood drills the lock out. As soon as he’s done, Barr throws the box aside without even looking into it. Another box; this time Blackwood doesn’t drill all the way through the lock, he just lets the drill tear in a bit and then stops.

John shuffles through the document envelopes until he finds one with four signatures scrawled across the sealed flap. He shoves that envelope into the backpack, stuffs the rest back into the open safety deposit box, and flips the lid shut.

“Four minutes,” he snaps. “We’re done.”

McMath and Barr fling aside the safety deposit boxes in their hands. The crowbars, drill, and ultraviolet lamp go back into Blackwood’s bag. John picks up the backpack, and all four of them run back down the hallway, past Hinde and Garrett, into the lobby area.

“The Fire Brigade’s going to be here in one and a half minutes,” Hinde says to the security guards and bank employees, who are still lying face-down on the floor of the hallway. “You’re perfectly safe, just stay here until they get to you – you did great, thank you.”

He and Garrett run after the others. McMath has snatched up the backpack from on top of the plant pot. Everyone pitches their handguns back into it, then McMath and Blackwood switch bags. Cullen pulls a penknife from his pocket and slices apart the zip-tie on the doors.

“Can everyone move back please,” McMath says as the seven of them stream out of the doors. “It’s a false alarm but we can’t let anyone back in until the Fire Brigade gives the all clear.”

Cullen and Garrett detach themselves from the group and start walking purposefully but unhurriedly away. They loosen their ties and slip them off, then remove their jackets and fold them to conceal the conspicuous _Security_ on the backs.

“Oi, move the shagging van,” McMath says loudly, as John and Blackwood move towards it. “I’ve got to get the Fire Brigade in here.”

Blackwood gets into the driver’s seat and John gets into the passenger’s. Blackwood turns the ignition, shifts the van into gear, and moves off.

“See if they’re all right round the back,” McMath says to Hinde.

Hinde nods. He and Barr set off at a jog round the corner. The fire engine comes up the street, cars pulling over ahead of it. It sweeps to a stop in front of the bank and a fireman swings down out the passenger seat of the cab.

“I’m really sorry,” McMath says with a grimace. “False alarm – someone stuck a Cornish Pasty in the toaster oven and walked off on it.”

“Fucking ‘ell,” the fireman says.

“Yeah, I know,” McMath says, “but you’d better give us the all clear.”

“Yeah, all right,” the fireman says.

“I don’t have a pass key for the lunch room,” McMath says. “I’ll just run round the back and get one from the security supervisor.”

“Cheers, mate,” the fireman says, as a couple of his companions climb unhurriedly down from the fire engine.

“Be right back, then,” McMath says, and he sets off at a easy lope round the corner in the same direction as Hinde and Barr.

Four minutes and several streets later, the white van swings into an alleyway and jerks to a stop beside two dumpsters, one open and the other closed, its lid secured with a zip-tie. The rear doors of the van are thrown open and Cullen, Garrett, Barr, and Hinde, all in street clothes, jump out. Cullen goes to the closed dumpster, stripping his knife from his jacket pocket, and cuts the zip-tie securing the lid. He flings the lid open and turns to catch the bulky black plastic trash bag Garrett tosses at him.

Blackwood jumps out of the driver’s seat. He unzips his overalls and strips them down, revealing street clothes underneath. He bundles the overalls up as he walks to the back of the van. McMath - also in street clothes - is crouched inside the van, shoving more filled trash bags at Garrett, who throws them to Cullen, who throws them up into the dumpster. Hinde holds out an open trash bag and Blackwood adds the overalls to the security guard’s outfit already inside.

Meanwhile, Barr and McMath go to opposite sides of the van. Each of them scrapes a thumbnail against the van’s side panel until they’ve loosened one corner of the transparent printed decal stuck to it. They peel the plastic film off, the red lettering distorting as it folds and collapses, leaving the sides of the van blankly white. Then they strip the opaque plastic decals off the van’s front and back registration plates, revealing the genuine numbers beneath. They crumple the plastic into balls and deposit them in the last of the trash bags.

John gets out of the passenger seat, carrying two fairly compact but obviously heavy black canvas backpacks. Blackwood pulls on a jacket and accepts one of the backpacks.

“We’re done,” Garrett says to John as Cullen flips the dumpster lid closed.

“All right,” John nods. “Ninety minutes – keep moving, text me if you’re okay, call me if you’re not.”

Garrett taps Cullen on the arm, and they turn and stride off down the alleyway together. McMath gets out of the back of the van. He and Hinde both glance at the chronometers on their wrists.

“I’ve got fifteen oh seven,” McMath says.

“Check,” Hinde says. “I’ll pick you guys up in forty-five minutes.”

“Right,” McMath says, clasping Hinde’s arm briefly before moving to the driver’s door of the van.

Hinde glances at John.

“Right,” John says, shrugging his backpack on. “Let me know you picked them up okay, and let me know that you all got back to base.”

“Yes, sir,” Hinde nods, then he lifts a hand in a parting to the others and walks briskly away in the opposite direction from Garrett and Cullen.

“Next stop, Earl’s Court tube station,” McMath says, glancing at John and Blackwood.

John and Blackwood climb into the back of the van and pull the doors closed. McMath gets into the driver’s seat; Barr is already sitting in the passenger’s one. He puts the van in gear, drops the handbrake, and drives sedately out of the alleyway.

Ninety minutes later, John and Blackwood are walking briskly along a laneway between the backs of some houses and a row of garages. They stop; John stoops to thumb the combination wheels of the lock securing one garage’s metal shutter, while Blackwood stands over him and looks up and down the laneway. John straightens, throwing the rattling shutter up on its sliders. They step inside. John closes the shutter again and Blackwood flicks the light switch just inside the doorway. The single unshaded bulb hanging from the ceiling comes on. The bare concrete space is empty except for a badly beaten kitchen table and two lamed chairs in the middle of the floor, and several stacks of plastic crates and cardboard boxes against the walls.

Blackwood drops his backpack onto the table, which tilts slightly under the sudden weight. John swings his backpack off but doesn’t put it down. Blackwood picks up one of the chairs and sets it down again in another spot. John steps up onto it, bracing himself briefly with a hand on Blackwood’s shoulder before reaching up and striking the warped and water-stained ceiling panel with the heel of his hand. The panel jumps up out of its framing and John slides it aside to reveal a dark, dank space under the garage’s metal roof. He swings the backpack up, grunting a little in discomfort as his shoulder flexes, and pushes it aside into the dark. He pulls the ceiling panel back into place and steps down from the chair.

He sits down on the chair that’s still at the table, draws the other backpack to him, and spills out the bags, boxes and envelope taken from the safety deposit box. Blackwood replaces the other chair at the table, and leans his hands on its backrest as he watches John untie the neck of one velvet bag and tip it upside-down. A stream of large gold coins spills out onto the table top.

“One ounce Krugerrands, very nice,” Blackwood says, picking up one gleaming disc.

“Forty-eight in the bag,” John says, raking the coins flat with his hand and then starting to stack them and rebag them. “Assuming the other two bags are the same that’s a hundred and forty-four in all. Gold’s going for eight hundred and seventy pounds an ounce – call it a hundred and twenty grand, give or take.”

Blackwood purses his lips and gives a low, swooping whistle. He drops the coin back onto the table, picks up the small velvet box, and pops the lid open. The interior of the box is lined with ruches of black satin; a dozen diamonds – vivid and clear and coldly glittering – lie among the folds. John glances at them briefly, and then looks down to finish repacking the coins.

“I don’t know anything about gems,” he says. “They could be rubbish.”

“Bet they’re not, though,” Blackwood smirks.

He snaps the box shut again and tosses it down next to the velvet bags.

“Shall we take a look, then?” he asks, eyebrow arched as he jerks his chin to indicate the larger velvet box.

John glances up at him, and then down at the box.

“Sure,” he says.

Blackwood hooks the toe of his boot around the unoccupied chair and draws it to him. As he sits down, John sets the box in the middle of the table. Blackwood hunches forwards, his eyes bright with interest. John lifts the lid.

“Jesus,” Blackwood breathes.

“ _Oh_ ,” John says softly.

The interior of the box is deeply padded and covered in blue cloth; nestled inside is a rectangle of richly embossed gold set with bright turquoise and deep red stones, shaped to be worn as a mask on the upper part of the face. There’s a prominence to accommodate the bridge of the nose, and two eyeholes with downward-sweeping points at the inner corners and long upward-sweeping tapers at the outer ones. Molded loops on the sides and lower edge of the mask suggest that other pieces may have been attached there at one time.

“Two thousand years old,” Blackwood says softly.

John nods. He leans in, peers closer, and exhales in delight and disbelief as he parses the shapes worked in exquisite detail on the gold’s rich surface.

“They’re _dolphins_ ,” he breathes. “How did they even - ”

He shakes his head in rueful wonder and sits up again.

“Good mission,” Blackwood says, his smile vivid in his eyes though it barely touches his mouth.

John nods soberly, but then the corner of his mouth quirks and then he’s grinning and then he’s just laughing.

“Four minutes, like fucking clockwork,” Blackwood whoops. “It was _perfect_.”

“No, not perfect,” John protests, still beaming, “just – really, really bloody good.”

“Come on. I’ll buy you a drink,” Blackwood grins.


	2. Sally

“DI Holmes,” Sherlock announces as he briefly flicks a warrant card in front of the uniformed police constable standing inside the door of the bank.

The constable nods indifferent approval, but Sherlock is already striding past him, his gaze sweeping the bank lobby. Several more uniformed police constables are talking to the bank’s security guards and the two business employees who were held prisoner. A couple of crime scene investigators are poring over the empty plant pot on its metal handcart, and the now wilted fern lying on the floor next to them.

Sherlock glances at the broken cover of the fire alarm and the blackened lenses of the security cameras; his mouth twists in amusement. He walks quickly down the hallway towards the back of the bank. He turns the corner, and is confronted by Sally Donovan in intent conversation with a crime scene investigator.

“Freak - what are you doing here?” Sally demands, her eyes round with annoyance and sheer disbelief.

“Where’s Lestrade?” Sherlock smirks, his eyes sliding past her to the streaks of soot on the wall and the lock plate of the security gate behind her.

“He’s already left,” Sally says. “You missed him.”

“Well, when is he coming back?” Sherlock asks with elaborate precision.

“He’s not. This isn’t his case,” Sally says.

Sherlock’s expression folds abruptly into blank surprise.

“It’s your case?” he says, glancing her up and down as if the key to the mystery might be in some detail of her clothing or posture. “He gave you this case?”

“Yeah,” Sally says, her eyes practically snapping sparks. “It’s _my_ botched bank robbery, and I don’t want you in it.”

“Oh, that’s not right,” Sherlock says, his voice rumbling softly in his chest, “that’s not right at all.”

Sally’s nostrils flare. She glances down the hallway at the two crime scene investigators who are diligently brushing and photographing the jumble of safety deposit boxes on the floor of the strong room. The one who’s been watching her exchange with Sherlock from the corner of his eye looks away quickly.

“You know what’s not right?” Sally says tightly, lifting her gaze to Sherlock’s again. “Someone with no training, no credentials, and no _respect_ waltzing onto any crime scene that takes his fancy and _getting away with it_ because an otherwise decent DI is susceptible to a plumy accent and a _fuck-me face_ \- well, they don’t work on me.”

“I meant, the robbery wasn’t _botched_ ,” Sherlock says evenly.

Sally’s eyes flare wide for a second and then narrow.

“They only managed to get two safety deposit boxes open,” she says. “They didn’t have the right equipment to - ”

Sherlock sighs pleasurably.

“Four minutes,” he says. “It took them four minutes. They evacuated almost everyone from the building and subdued anyone who was left. They took care of the security cameras, and they had precisely the right amount of PE4 to open the security gate without making any unnecessary mess. They had the tools and the muscle to extract thirty-two - no, thirty-three - safety deposit boxes from their hutches. They drilled two of them open and then they made their escape by walking out the front door and telling the Fire Brigade they’d be _back in a minute_. You’ve got CCTV on almost every street, but you haven’t found the getaway van or you’d be there, not here. I’m sure you’re right, Sally; they meant to clean those boxes out but they lacked the foresight to bring more than one drill.”

Sally’s stare softens a little, turns uncertain.

“Let me look at the two boxes they opened,” Sherlock says steadily.

Sally’s gaze flickers. She nods jerkily. They turn and walk through the security gate into the strong room, Sherlock taking a pair of nitrile gloves from his inside pocket and pulling them on as he goes. The two drilled safety deposit boxes are sitting side by side on the floor; Sherlock throws the skirts of his coat aside and crouches down. He picks up one box, turning it quickly in his hands and peering at the surfaces of the metal before lifting the lid.

“Last will and testament, shares certificates, house deeds,” he says, rifling through the few papers inside.

He flips the box closed again, sets it down, and picks up the other one.

“Bonds, shares certificates,” he says. “There’s nothing to choose between these two boxes. It’s possible that whatever they were after was in both, but it’s more likely to have been in just one – they opened the second one and battered all of the others trying to obscure the fact that they were looking for something specific.”

He discards the box and stands up again.

“What was it?” Sally frowns.

Sherlock narrows his eyes, lifts his free hand, and presses the tip of his index finger hard into his temple. Sally’s eyes widen slightly and her mouth curls in faintly horrified fascination.

“No idea,” Sherlock says, whipping his hand away again, “except that it’s smaller than a safety deposit box and it’s not here anymore.”

Sally grimaces.

“So, wait a minute,” she says. “You’re telling me a gang of seven armed bank robbers pulled a job in the middle of London, in broad daylight, and got away with something valuable enough that they ignored the rest of the bank for it.”

“A bit more exciting than a botched attempt at the money, isn’t it?” Sherlock grins, stripping his gloves off and returning them to his pocket.

“I’ll call the DI,” Sally says, her voice falling.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Sherlock says quietly.

Sally’s brows fold into a frown.

“He gave you this case because he thought it was beneath him,” Sherlock says, his eyes pale and clear and very steady. “You weren’t smart enough to work it out but neither was he. Why should he get it back now, just because it’s suddenly worth having?”

Sally’s eyes sharpen suspiciously.

“Keep it,” Sherlock says, his voice velvety soft. “Let me in; when I solve it, you’ll have the prestige of a significant case and Lestrade will have a useful reminder of his own fallibility.”

“Why would _you_ want to help _me_?” Sally asks, her voice cold but her eyes ravenous.

“Oh, you’re not the only one who’d like to see Lestrade a little less dismissive of other people’s abilities,” Sherlock says archly.

For a second, Sally’s expression wavers, undecided what to become, and then sets in carefully composed lines.

“If I do let you in - and I’m not saying I will,” she says, “what would you tell me to do?”

Sherlock’s mouth slides into a one-sided grin.

“Five security guards in a florist’s van are a bit conspicuous,” he says, “but no one noticed them, which means they must have ditched the uniforms and possibly the van close by. Have the little worker bees start searching rubbish bins, skips, anywhere you could dump a lot of clothing without attracting attention - probably in a side street or an alleyway. And get the owners of those two boxes - ” he nods towards the drilled safety deposit boxes “ - to come in and check the contents. If we know what was stolen we’ll have a better chance of getting it back.”

“They’re already on their way here,” Sally says.

Sherlock makes a little sound of surprise and approval in his throat.

“ _Sally_. I thought you were content to get by on your looks,” Sherlock says with a sharp sideways tilt of his head.

Sally closes her eyes deliberately and draws a long breath in through gritted teeth.

“Don’t forget the CCTV footage from the bank lobby,” Sherlock says pleasantly. “We should look at that.”

Sally snaps her eyes open again.

“They blacked the cameras out,” she says.

“Well, yes,” Sherlock says, “so I think we’d better concentrate on the footage from _before_ they did that.”

“How long before?” Sally asks.

“Hard to say,” Sherlock frowns. “This was obviously meticulously planned in advance but - say a week, to start with. If we don’t find anything, we’ll go back further.”

“I’ll have them release the bank CCTV footage to you,” Sally says. “I’ll catch up with you when I’m done here.”

 

“He probably didn’t hear the door go,” Missus Hudson says as she leads Sally up the stairs to Sherlock’s flat. “He doesn’t, you know, when he’s taken up with something.”

Sally makes a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement. A black messenger bag is hanging from one shoulder, and in her hands she’s carrying a large, transparent plastic bag filled with a tangle of clothing and one of the crumpled up sheets of plastic film from the van’s sides.

“Coo ee,” Missus Hudson calls as she knocks on the already open door of the flat. “Sherlock? There’s someone to see you.”

“In the kitchen,” Sherlock says, his voice raised.

“Oh, Sherlock, look at this place,” Missus Hudson says plaintively, plucking a discarded shirt off a teetering pile of books on one corner of the sitting room table. “You can’t invite a girl in here.”

“Sergeant Donovan’s not a girl,” Sherlock says, coming into the sitting room carrying his open laptop. “She’s a policeman.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Missus Hudson says, her eyes creasing encouragingly. “I think couples do better when they have similar interests.”

“We aren’t - ” Sally begins.

“Thank you, Missus Hudson,” Sherlock says, setting his laptop down and chivying her out the door with two hands on her back. “Off you go – off, off.”

Missus Hudson flaps a hand at him, throws another encouraging little smile at Sally, and goes downstairs again.

“Oh, very clever,” Sherlock says as he takes the bag from Sally’s hands and extracting the crumpled plastic film. “So it was really a plain white van, and a different license number.”

“And a plain white cargo van was reported abandoned and partially burnt out, out by Battersea,” Sally says. “I have got SOCs there now - ”

“Pointless,” Sherlock says, pulling some of the clothes out of the bag. “They’re far too good to have left anything instructive.”

He lifts a crumpled jacket to his face and inhales deeply.

“Brand new,” he announces. “Could be any one of a dozen uniform suppliers – the labels have been removed and an order of five outfits isn’t large enough to be memorable.”

He stuffs the jacket back into the bag and drops it on the seat of one armchair.

“What about the owners of the safety deposit boxes?” he asks impatiently.

“Erwin Weaver and Robert Chan,” Sally says, handing Sherlock a printed page from her coat pocket. “And I hate to disappoint you, but … they both said there’s nothing missing.”

Sherlock jerks his gaze up from the images on the page to scowl at her.

“What?”

Sally shrugs, her mouth curling in sardonic satisfaction.

“No,” Sherlock says sharply, “that’s not right.”

“They must have opened the wrong boxes,” Sally says.

“ _No_ ,” Sherlock snaps. “ _Four minutes_ – they thought of everything. You expect me to believe they made a mistake like that?”

“The owners say there’s nothing missing,” Sally insists.

“Then the owners are lying,” Sherlock counters.

“Why?” Sally demands.

Sherlock clenches his fists and growls in frustration.

“I don’t know but – all right, the CCTV footage,” he says, pulling a chair out and sitting down at the table in front of his laptop.

He tosses the page with Weaver and Chan’s pictures onto the table next to him.

“Anything in what you’ve looked at so far?” Sally asks, slipping her coat off and taking her own laptop from her bag before sitting down at the other side of the table.

“A bank with a lot of people … _banking_ ,” Sherlock mutters, his gaze already riveted to his screen. “Coffee’s in the kitchen, nicotine patches are in the bathroom, don’t speak unless you have actual information to impart.”

“You’re an ass,” Sally says.

Sherlock’s eyes swing up from the screen to meet hers, his stare opaque and cold.

“Oh, have we started?” Sally says, with a fractional toss of her head.

Sherlock looks down again, but the corners of his mouth quiver minutely.

 

There’s the faintest hint of gray light leaking in between the drawn curtains. Sherlock is still at the table, sitting in front of his laptop. His eyes are hooded, though his stare is still intent and steady. The pale screen-light flickers on his face, making harsh shadows and sudden gleams of his features. Sally’s laptop is sitting open on the coffee table, and her shoes are lying on the rug underneath. Sally is lying on her side on the couch, one hand tucked beneath her cheek and the other between her drawn-up knees.

Abruptly Sherlock blinks, squeezes his eyes shut and snaps them wide. His finger scribes across his touchpad and taps emphatically.

“I’ve got,” he says, and then much more loudly, “Donovan – wake up, I’ve got it.”

He clatters his laptop on the surface of the table.

“I’m up, I’m there, I’m doing it,” Sally says blurrily, and then pitches herself into a sit and bundles the mass of her curls back from her face. “What?”

“I’ve found it,” Sherlock says, standing up and twisting aside from his chair. “Look – come on, hurry up.”

“All right, I’m coming, I’m - ” Sally scowls, unfolding from the couch and moving to the table, still groggily palming the cloud of her hair back.

She drops into the chair, opens her eyes very wide, and takes a deep nasal breath. Sherlock taps the touchpad and the quartered image on the screen begins to move.

“What am I looking at?” she asks after a few seconds. “I’m looking at people banking. I’ve already seen six hours of this.”

“Twelve minutes before the fire alarm was set off,” Sherlock says quickly, and raps his finger against the screen. “Here, the camera that covers the front door - ”

The man in the dark overcoat is pushing the door open. Henn strides into shot, though the camera sees only the back of his fair head and his gray suit jacket. The two men collide, shuffle, and finally part again.

“It's Erwin Weaver. I told you one of them was lying,” Sherlock says, bending down and darting his face close to Sally’s.

“Jesus,” Sally says, jerking back with a grimace. “He didn’t lie – he told us he was in the bank. You read the statement.”

“He said nothing unusual happened,” Sherlock counters, straightening up again and moving away to rummage among the books and papers and random artifacts covering the bookcase next to the door.

“Some fella _walked into him_ the same day the bank was robbed,” Sally protests. “It’s a _coincidence_.”

“Good God,” Sherlock says, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Is that really what passes for reasoning among your lot?”

“My - _what_?” Sally gapes.

“Look at the video,” Sherlock says with an imperious flick of his hand. “ _Look_.”

“I’m looking,” Sally snaps. “I’m looking at the back of some fella’s head.”

“Then try looking at his _right shoulder_ ,” Sherlock grinds, dragging a UV light and its trailing cord out of the tangle on one shelf.

“His – he’s - ” Sally says.

She tilts her head over and wrinkles her nose.

“ – he’s – what is he _doing_?”

“Making some kind of rhythmic, repetitive up and down motion with his right hand,” Sherlock says, plugging the lamp in at the baseboard beside the shelves.

“In a _bank_?” Sally says.

“It’s all right. I think he’s rubbing something on, rather than off,” Sherlock grins.

He takes his used nitrile gloves from his coat pocket and brings the UV lamp over them. The folds of the gloves’ fingers glow vividly green. Sally stands up and approaches, frowning softly.

“How did you know?” she asks, looking at the gloves and then up at Sherlock.

“I knew the marker was invisible under normal conditions,” Sherlock says, “but it had to be something that could be activated quickly and reversibly – ultraviolet was the obvious candidate.”

“So – the man in video, he walked into Weaver on purpose and rubbed this stuff onto him while he pretended to dust him off,” Sally says.

“Good girl,” Sherlock says, his gaze suddenly constricting. “Now tell me why.”

Sally’s brows furrow but her eyes flicker intently.

“It – it’s on your gloves because you handled the opened safety deposit boxes,” she says, “so it was on the boxes – no, it was on one of the boxes. And it got there from Weaver’s clothing – they did it so they could identify the box - _his_ box, the box that he went into the bank to – take something out of, or put something in.”

She’s almost breathless with intensity – she throws both hands up, scooping her hair up in her fingers.

“Which means?” Sherlock goads.

“I don’t know,” Sally squeaks.

Sherlock throws his hands up, but his mime of disgust is leavened by an almost indulgent gleam in his eyes.

“It means they didn’t know which box was his, but they did know he was going to the bank to open it,” he says.

“I’m bringing Weaver in for questioning,” Sally says, stepping past Sherlock to where her shoes are lying on the floor.

“No,” Sherlock says, catching hold of her arm.

“He’s obstructing the investigation of a crime,” Sally protests.

She glances down, and starts slightly at the sight of Sherlock’s long fingers splayed around the pale gray sleeve of her shirt. He lets go abruptly, his expression flickering momentarily through chagrin to elaborate indifference.

“A crime of which he is the victim,” he says. “What does that _tell you_?”

“That … he’s glad to be rid of whatever was stolen,” Sally hazards.

“He kept it in a safety deposit box,” Sherlock says with a slight eye roll.

“All right, he doesn’t want to tell us what it was,” Sally tries, and then – her gaze darkening and sharpening, “he doesn’t want to tell the police what it was. It’s something he’s not supposed to have in the first place.”

“Right now he doesn’t know we’re onto him,” Sherlock says. “Don’t bring him in, but dig into everything you can find out about him – his past, his associations, his vices – somehow Mister Weaver came into possession of something very, very valuable and very, very naughty.”

“I’m on it,” Sally says, stepping into her shoes and picking her coat up from where it’s draped on the back of an armchair.

Sherlock dips his hand into his pants pocket and pulls out his phone.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve got something,” Sally says as she strides to the door.

“Mmm … yes, do,” Sherlock says abstractedly as he reads the message on his phone.

Sally goes quickly out of the door and down the stairs. Sherlock places a call and lifts his phone to his ear.

“Doctor Sawyer?” he says after a brief pause. “This is Sherlock Holmes. I received your text and - yes, I think I might be able to advise you. Why don't you come by this morning?"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Minutes to Midnight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/276931) by [suchanadorer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/suchanadorer)




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